Link to Post:
http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/2012/12/fair-game-small-works-in-big-week.html
Joanne Mattera photoblogs images of the wide variety of small paintings on view at the Miami Art Fairs in 2012.
Mattera writes: "Big paintings really did make an impact at the fairs, but it's eminently worth noting that there were a lot of strong small paintings and works on paper... After several days of the big picture, small was a welcome change of pace. I appreciated the opportunity to calter my physical relationship to the work--closer, slower, more intimate. The materials and expression are varied, but something many works have in common is the installation in multiple. It's an effective visual format with small works."
Another post by Mattera featuring paintings from Art Miami, Aqua Art, Context, Miami Project, Pulse and Untitled is here.
Link to Post:
http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/2012/12/fair-game-painting-in-big-box.html
Joanne Mattera blogs an in-depth look at the painting on view at Art Basel Miami Beach 2012.
Mattera comments: "There was more painting at ABMB than I can ever remember--and this was my seventh fair... The Tornabuoni Art booth dedicated to the work of Lucio Fontana was stellar. And wait until you see the geometry of the very contemporary Carmen Herrera (now 90-something) with the work of John McLaughlin and Jo Baer from the Sixties... I made a real effort to look beyond my personal geometric preferences. I even put some figurative work into the mix. The order is visually fluid, looping into and out of geometry, and there are some interesting material surprises. In another post I'll show painting from the other fairs--because there was a lot of painting everywhere.
Link to Post:
http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2012/12/tatiana-bergs-picks-from-miami-part-ii.html
In a two part post, Tatiana Berg photo blogs paintings on display at the Miami Art Fairs: Art Basel in post one and NADA and Untitled in post two.
Berg notes that the photos are her "personal highlights and completely subjective, biased favorites. As much as there is to complain about art fairs they remain a pretty efficient way to see a ton of work all at once, before you fill up and fall over and die from exhaustion... Getting to walk around and stumble upon a piece by an artist you love is fun in a celebrity-sighting kind of way, and occasionally you get grabbed by something you've never seen before."
Link to Post:
http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2012/06/schwabsky-coins-term-retromodernism-for.html
Sharon Butler questions Barry Schwabsky's coining of the term retromodernism to describe small scale paintings that mix abstraction and representation "in a manner that evokes the spiritual and intellectual strivings of classic modernism," citing examples from the Frieze Art Fair.
Butler comments that "postwar-era abstract easel painting has been a touchstone among painters... for several years, not just at the recent version of Frieze. Rather than observing a new trend, Schwabsky is giving what is already a robust movement, and therefore self-evident, a new, somewhat derogatory, name. Indeed, many painters have appropriated the visual language of Modernist painting, but from a critical stance, not as a form of nostalgia."
Link to Post:
http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/2012/03/some-paintings-during-armory-week.html
Joanne Mattera photo blogs a range of paintings on view at the Armory Week art fairs.
She writes that the paintings on view encompassed "a range of esthetic and material expression. Here it includes the mineral pigments of Suzan Frecon, to the egg tempera and gold leaf of Mary Obering, to the puddled paint of Ian Davenport, to the fiber-optic fabric of Daniel Buren's sculptural painting."
Link to Post:
http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2012/03/painting-strategies-at-2012-whitney.html
Sharon Butler examines the paintings and painting strategies on view at the 2012 Whitney Biennial.
Butler writes that "the 2012 Biennial has adopted a modest DIY aesthetic that you might see at an artist-run gallery in, say, Bushwick. Overall, I liked the human scale of the objects, the emphasis on the handmade (as opposed to professionally fabricated), and the way painting infused several conceptually driven installations."
Link to Post:
http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/2011/12/fair-play-some-paintings.html
Joanne Mattera's excellent art fair coverage focuses in on painting. Click through for a thorough look at the paintings on view in Miami.
Mattera notes that "There’s a lot of big at the fairs, but the small paintings I saw really held their own. I expect to see smaller work at the smaller venues, but it's always a surprise to see them at [Art Basel Miami Beach]."
